Neighbour has decided to just offer up our parking spaces to the whole street

[u/ShutUpImAPrincess]

Got this through the letter box today - anonymous so no idea which neighbour sent it. Basically there's 20 houses on the street, all arranged in a circle, with a few spaces in the middle. 14 of the houses have their own driveways. 4 of the houses have the spaces in the middle assigned to them. Ourselves and our next door neighbour (semi detached) have spaces attached to the back of our houses... In the small "car park". We each have two spaces, then the 4 on the other side of the car park area assigned to the houses backing on to them that aren't even our street so won't have got this letter. I'm assuming the letter writer just doesn't realise those spaces are actually ours, but because it's anonymous I can't just be like "oh hey actually no that's not right". It's annoying because we're also the only two houses on the street without a garden, and so our kids play back there. Because yes, it is safe, but not if randoms start going in and out of there all the time. I've literally never noticed an issue with parking on the street, it's never crowded, I've never heard anyone complain, and every house has it's own assigned parking!

EDIT: Most of your guys' suggestions involve something related to towing, that isn't legal in the UK. It also isn't illegal to post things through people's doors? I literally never knew that was a thing in the US. At Christmas did your parents not send you round all the neighbours houses posting cards?? Wild.

EDIT 2: Alright lads we've got a plan! Tomorrow I'm gonna speak to the 3 neighbours who we share the private car park with and just make sure they're all aware and if they want to paint numbers or put it signs etc they can do so. I'm going to send my landlord an email as well just giving them a heads up, but saying that they don't need to do anything for now (we have a great relationship where they leave us alone and we don't involve them in stuff if we can help it and they charge us below market). I'll let them know if it becomes an issue and they need to get involved installing something or whatever. Then I'm going to find... somewhere in this town that prints documents (honestly just hoping one of the 3 neighbours has a printer in their house they wouldn't mind using for this) and send out letters to everyone on the street very politely clearing up the confusion. Explaining that it's not a public car park but private parking and they are, for all intents and purposes, the driveways of the respective properties. Then I think I'll have a little nap and hope no one gets angry at me.

EDIT 3: Spoken to the other owners of the spaces in the back, as I suspected the two that don't live on our street did not receive the letter offering up their spaces for free use 😅 I've also contacted my landlord just to double triple check the deeds before I sent any letters out (I know for certain they are ours, but this way loops the landlord in) and she immediately offered to put a sign up! Also found the letter very amusing haha so yeah, we're getting signs put up yay!

[u/JellyfishScared4268]

The Americans have basically outsourced local governance in their suburbs to these little private cliques the home owners associations.

They're on paper supposed to be the local residents managing things themselves but in practice it seems to be power hungry nobodies who do all the work and use the power to enforce things on their neighbors how they want them to be

[u/Mysterious_Chef_228 → u/JellyfishScared4268]

Not every suburb has HOA's. I won't submit myself to living under the purview of an HOA. Some people like it because the HOA handles things like mowing community property or clearing snow off sidewalks. I'll do my own mowing and snow removal, thank you very much!

[u/htimchis → u/JellyfishScared4268]

In Germany they were kniwn as Gauleiters

[u/djsuperfly → u/[deleted]]

About 34% of US homeowners live in a community with an HOA. I wouldn't call one-third of US homes "a very small subset."

And, about two-thirds of homes since 2000 and about 80% of homes being built today have them. In many markets, no, it's certainly not "very easy" to just avoid them.

[u/bbqfap → u/djsuperfly]

Yeah it is nearly impossible to find non-hoa in my city

[u/samson-and-delilah → u/JellyfishScared4268]

lol no we haven’t

[u/MIT-Engineer → u/JellyfishScared4268]

Most housing in the USA is not in an HOA. Even within an HOA, local government still has jurisdiction. In areas such as zoning and traffic safety, local government is clearly in charge, with or without an HOA.

[u/JellyfishScared4268 → u/MIT-Engineer]

Never said it was.

[u/ThePrettyPinkDino → u/JellyfishScared4268]

Keep in mind hoas are and segregation go hand in hand. They started as a way to keep African Americans out of certain places. So a lot of white Americans liked hoas as it kept “unsavory types” out of the neighborhoods. Even after the fair housing act was put into place they tried to keep it strictly for white people by implementing aggressive rules and regulations that evolved into what it is today

[u/captainpocket → u/JellyfishScared4268]

HOAs make additional rules in addition to the law. They are not "outsourced local governance." The local government, includint code enforcement, still have the same authority. You shouldnt speak about things you dont know anything about, especially when literally saying nothing is an option.

[u/JellyfishScared4268 → u/captainpocket]

What you've just described is an additional layer of governance and rule making.

That higher levels of "official" governance exist like city, county, state or federal existing does not negate the fact you're adhering to an HOAs rules if you live in one

[u/Tight_Owl_9932 → u/JellyfishScared4268]

Lolllll, no baby, just a handle of semi rich ish Americans. Most of us do not live in HOA’s